Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...

Well, I am as ready as I will ever be for my first 5k. Yesterday's training run (in unexpectedly sunny weather, with my "old" running shoes, without drinking any water during the actual run) went surprisingly well, energy-wise. The time was slow (about a :42 5k pace), but at no point did I feel like collapsing, so I'll take that as a victory any ol' day. Today is probably going to be one of the toughest days: the total rest day. Part of my goal today is to stay busy and make sure I have everything prepped and ready to go, so that I will be (slightly) less likely to obsess about Saturday's Freihofer's Run for Women and the 3,999 people who will be running "with" me. Staying busy should also help me sleep well tonight. (Enough rain tonight to keep my neighbors from partying and keeping me up 'til 2am would also be nice.)

After yesterday's run, while marvelling at how I seem to sweat even more profusely after the run than I do during the run (seriously, shouldn't I have completely melted away to a size 6 by now?), I began to feel something...what's the adjective I'm looking for? Could it be...confident? I know in my head that I can do this. I know in my heart that I can do this. I just hope my legs and lungs will toe the party line on Saturday. So my dopey-but-effective-for-me mantra goes, "Strong legs...strong lungs...strong heart...strong will...I will, I can, I am!" (Notice it has seven components...gotta have a prime!)

Part of the visualization I use during training runs (to help keep me from analyzing every damn step of the run and the whole gee-this-is-so-hard factor) includes my various supporters lining the 5k course, cheering me on, many of them holding signs that are unique to their personalities and specific to their relationship with me. Many of those "signs" are too racy (hah! pun intended!) even for basic cable, so I won't list them here; but rest assured that they are specific and very inspiring to me. Kitteh's sign alone can carry me a good solid kilometer, as long as I don't start laughing too hard. Fortunately, there are enough of supporters that I don't have a long distance to run between supporters. Sometimes I think of running from supporter to supporter as running fartleks, and everyone who knows me knows how much the word "fartlek" makes me giggle, but I try not to giggle while running, since I need every molecule of oxygen I can get my lungs on!

This afternoon I'm picking up my race packet, which includes my bib: #821. PRIME NUMBER!!! My raceday clothing is already laid out; all that's missing is the bib pinned to the front of my purple sleeveless UnderArmour running shirt. I think I might even have some purple safety pins with which to attach it...

I've had so many people encouraging me through this process, some of whom I've known for years and see practically on a daily basis, some of whom I rarely see or haven't seen in ages but have reconnected with thanks to Facebook, and some of whom I've never actually met except in the virtual world of Facebook. I hesitate to mention individuals by name, only because I'm afraid I'll forget someone. But here goes (in totally random order): Kitteh, Tiffany, Kathy ma sista, Kathryn, Carolyn, K-E-L-L-Y, the whole B-team, Colleen, Johnny T, Casey, Christine, Daryl, Page, Herbee, Barb, Pam, Neil, Michael, Katie, Dad, CCMH, Bill & Terry, Jaime, Gretchen, Fr. Pape, the Williams family (especially my "boyfriend," Elijah) and all of my Cathedral friends, Gort, Donna (aka Miley), Sherrill (who basically started the whole idea for me after running the Freihofer's for the first time last year) and, of course, Kathleen, who is risking mortal embarrassment by running the FR4W with me (and without whom I probably would have bailed on this Quixotic quest several times over in the last three months alone). Of course, special thanks to La Diva Loca del Fenway, my canine antidepressant and best bud. I've probably forgotten to mention a whole slew of folks, whose names will come to me about eight milliseconds after I click the "POST" button. So if I neglected you, please feel free to lambaste me in the comments. I'm a big girl (literally!), I can take it. Someone might say I forgot to thank God, but if the Divine is indeed the key element of each and every one of us (and I sincerely believe it is), then expressing my gratitude to all of you is thanking God, just as your encouragement, support and love are expressions of His love to me, regardless of your spiritual leanings (or non-leanings). As the old, so-cute-it'll-make-you-gag saying goes, "God is love...and vice-versa." La reconnaissance est la memoire du coeur. (Gratitude is the memory of the heart.)

With all due respect to Macbeth, it's not "tomorrow" that creeps in this petty pace, it's today...the day before the race...the REST DAY before the race. I have no doubt that tomorrow will pass in the blink of an eye, so I just want to enjoy it (especially five particular kilometers), run the whole way regardless of how many grannies with walkers fly past me, feel the air in my lungs, feel my heart beating strong and sure, experience the sublime feeling of simply moving my body through space under its own power, and cross the finish line with a smile on my face and the cry of "Vive le tortue enflammé!!!" (or, heck, even a simple, "I did it!!!") coming from my lips. I'm even willing to autograph my free box of Freihofer's cookies. Heck, maybe I'll even eat them, but I really have my heart set on a Boston shake from the Tastee Freez in Delmar.

'Til tomorrow...